From owner-freebsd-mobile@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Nov 18 07:06:32 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-mobile@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0307816A4CF for ; Tue, 18 Nov 2003 07:06:31 -0800 (PST) Received: from inception.quiecom.com (inception.quiecom.com [216.127.82.32]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8B55243FBD for ; Tue, 18 Nov 2003 07:06:29 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from fish@fish-mail.com) X-ClientAddr: 208.44.60.32 Received: from [10.1.132.30] (internet-user.jwt.com [208.44.60.32]) (authenticated) by inception.quiecom.com (8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id hAIEsB010528; Tue, 18 Nov 2003 09:54:12 -0500 From: Fish To: Chris Howells In-Reply-To: <200311180923.06256.howells@kde.org> References: <20031118115649.58e3574f.timopie@dodo.com.au> <200311180923.06256.howells@kde.org> Content-Type: text/plain Message-Id: <1069167586.689.28.camel@current> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Ximian Evolution 1.4.5 Date: Tue, 18 Nov 2003 09:59:48 -0500 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-MailScanner-Information: Please contact the ISP for more information X-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-MailScanner-SpamCheck: not spam, SpamAssassin (score=-38.8, required 5, BAYES_01, EMAIL_ATTRIBUTION, IN_REP_TO, QUOTED_EMAIL_TEXT, REFERENCES, REPLY_WITH_QUOTES, USER_AGENT_XIMIAN) cc: timopie@dodo.com.au cc: freebsd-mobile@freebsd.org Subject: Re: BSD support? X-BeenThere: freebsd-mobile@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Mobile computing with FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 18 Nov 2003 15:06:32 -0000 On Tue, 2003-11-18 at 04:23, Chris Howells wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > Hi, > > On Tuesday 18 November 2003 01:56, Timothy Opie wrote: > > I did a BSD-Google search for laptop and notebook, and noticed that Dell > > came up more than any other company. I have been contemplating getting the > > Dell Inspiron 5150. > > Personally I can _strongly_ recommend that you do _not_ buy Dell. I ended up > taking them to court over a laptop which didn't work from the start, which > they refused to to anything about when they heard it was running Linux... > even though it was quite clearly a hardware problem. > > I guess with FreeBSD a conversation with "Dell support" (in quotes because I > believe it to be somewhat of any oxymoron) would go along the lines of "Free > what? Can't do anything about that, we only support the hardware, you have to > be able to get the problem under Windows XP for us to do anything". That's (at least in my case) not what happened when I had to call Dell support with a hardware issue on my Inspiron 8200. I'd had the machine for about a year, and the DVD-ROM had become increasingly unreliable. It finally called them about it when it got to the point where sometimes you could mount a disc, and sometimes you couldn't, but no matter what you certainly weren't going to read the disc. I call Dell support up, tell them I have a faulty DVD-ROM, and that it will not read any CD/DVD. They ask me some Windows-specific questions (driver versions, service pack, et cetera) and I told them I wasn't running Windows. At this point, it started going the way you'd expect, and they told me they didn't support FreeBSD, and that they couldn't help me. I told them that I didn't need software support, as it was a hardware issue, and explained that the machine refused to read a disc to the point where it wouldn't boot from a Windows install CD even if I wanted it to. They said okay, it's a hardware issue, you'll have your new drive tomorrow. Sorry if I got a bit verbose there, but I wanted to put forth that Dell is capable of providing reasonable hardware support, if you give them no other choice. Fish